I left my quilt on the train!

Wednesday morning, with handbag, suitcase, and big blue bag containing packaged-up quilt for the Fissures exhibition, I'm catching the early train towards Birmingham and a two-day workshop with Jo Budd before a couple of days at the Festival of Quilts. The scenery rolls by, the train gets to Rugby, I collect my things and get off, change trains. Then comes the dreadful moment of realization:Shaken, I consider the worst that can happen, then formulate Plan A and Plan B, and try not to fret, stuck helpless on the connecting train. At Birmingham International station, Rob in the lost property office phones Crewe, the train's next stop; the train will get there in 5 minutes. The package will be taken from the overhead rack above seat C25 [I kept the ticket; thank goodness for reserved seats!] and put into the lost property office at Crewe. Rob gives me train times to Crewe so I can go collect it. It will take at least 3 hours to do so.

The quilt needs to be hung before the show opens at 10am next morning. Now the quandry is: to miss the morning of the workshop, or the afternoon; or will it be possible to go to Crewe after 4.30 and get the quilt to the exhibition before 10am next morning? I formulate a new Plan A and a Plan B...

I make my way to the Fissures stand and find no-one there, so start to write a note of explanation. Various people come and drop off their quilts, and I tell my tale of woe to anyone who will listen. Everyone is aghast, then sympathetic; I'm so glad my quilt isn't still on the train, heading for Glasgow, that I don't much care if they think that leaving it on a train is a right daft thing to do.

Having done what I can, I go to the workshop and again tell my tale of woe to everyone there; I can think of nothing else, after all. And a miracle happens -- someone who must remain nameless offers to drive to Crewe and collect it. (She was acting subversively and I don't want to get her into trouble.) Thank you, thank you, anonymous angel! She would accept no recompense, so I'll be "paying it forward".

The quilt got to the Fissures exhibition after all. Who's a happy bunny, then? As for the entire Fissures exhibition, it looked really, really good, and some of the visitors commented that it was the best exhibition in the entire show. Thanks to Bailey, Susan, and everyone else involved for their hard work getting the Fissures exhibition up, and to others in Contemporary Quilt who are planning more activites.